Fun isn't a word usually associated with academic publishing. Crisis is. Specifically, the crisis arising from the fact that library budgets can't keep pace with the ever-rising costs of journal subscriptions. It has been a topic of scholarly discussion for a couple of decades now; in the past two years, though, the discussion has moved more into the mainstream.
In January 2012, University of Cambridge mathematician Timothy Gowers wrote a blog post that was discussed in The New York Times, The Independent (London), The Sunday Times, New Scientist, and The Guardian. He called for fellow mathematicians to boycott Elsevier, the Amsterdam-based publishing arm of Reed Elsevier that produces more than 2,000 science, medical, and engineering journals. His reason: Not only do Elsevier's rising costs put a mammoth strain on libraries' budgets, but the company makes an absurd profit on them—a profit that in part relies on the unpaid labor of scholars and researchers in nonprofit universities. Reed Elsevier's 2012 annual report shows Elsevier making more than $1.3 billion in revenue with a profit of more than $482 million. University and research libraries are publishers' primary revenue streams, accounting for about 80 percent of sales. In 2012, Elsevier reported a profit margin of 37.8 percent. full: http://hub.jhu.edu/magazine/2013/fall/future-of-academic-publishing _______________________________________________ pen-l mailing list [email protected] https://lists.csuchico.edu/mailman/listinfo/pen-l
